ARGENTINA
PORTAL

Argentina is a
country in South
America which covers an area of 2,766,890 km2
(1,068,302 sq mi) (excluding territorial claims). It
extends 3,800 km (2,361 mi) from North to South—from
latitude 22º to 55º South. Argentina has borders with Uruguay, Brasil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile with a total border length of 9,376 km
(5,826 mi). The name Argentina comes from the Latin
"argentum", meaning "silver" and was first used by the early
Spanish conquerors visiting the Río de la Plata. The present population
of the country is approximately 39 million inhabitants, mainly
concentrated in the urban agglomerations of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario.

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the month

Las Leñas

Las Leñas is one
of the largest Andean ski
resorts in Argentina,
together with Cerro Catedral in San Carlos de Bariloche, located in
the western part of Mendoza Province. It is well known for
its powder snow, good climate and excellent opportunities for
extreme and off-piste skiing. Construction of the ski center began
January 1983, and by July 1983 it opened with a hotel of 300 beds.
The ski area has a good diversity of slopes ranging from very easy
to extreme, including a good range of off-piste areas apt for
extreme skiing. The skiable area base starts at an altitude of
2,240 m above mean sea level (7,350 feet) and goes up to
3,430 m (11,253 ft) for a total drop of 1,200 m
(3,937 ft). The skiable surface amounts to
2.3 km2 (1 sq mi), with 27 runs and a
maximum non-stop skiable distance of 7 km (4 mi) (not
including off run alternatives). The total ski area reachable by
land is the largest in South America.

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Argentina
News

10 January
Argentine President Cristina
Kirchner's firing of the country's central bank president last
Wednesday has provoked a constitutional crisis, not unlike the one
that rocked Honduras last
summer. As with then-Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Mrs. Kirchner has tried to
run roughshod over her nation's laws. She blithely ignored legal
protections of bank independence. Not surprisingly, central bankerMartín
Redrado refused to go and challenged her reason for sacking
him: his refusal to hand over to her $6.6 billion in bank reserves.
In response, Mrs. Kirchner issued a decree to amend the bank's
charter so that she could push Mr. Redrado out "legally." A federal
judge then issued an injunction in favor of Mr. Redrado, and on
Friday he returned to his bank post. The same judge froze the
bank's reserves so Mrs. Kirchner couldn't take them. The
constitutional battle lines were drawn.WSJ

5 January Argentine
singer Sandro, whose gyrating pelvis and
romantic ballads brought comparisons to Elvis Presley and made him the first Latin American to sing in Madison
Square Garden, died Monday of complications from heart and lung
transplant surgery. He was 64. Sandro, who recorded 52 albums,
acted in 16 movies and was awarded a Latin Grammy for career
achievement in 2005, suffered from chronic lung disease that led to
the Nov. 20 surgery. He died at the Italian Hospital in the
Argentine city of Mendoza,
said Dr. Claudio Burgos.ABC News

1 January Thousands
gathered at the Obelisk in the center of
Argentina's capital on Friday for the symbolic start of the Dakar Rally.
Competitors embarked on a 215-mile drive to the city of Colon. The real racing on the
5,600-mile journey across Argentina and Chile begins Saturday for more than 350 drivers
in cars, motorbikes, quads and trucks. The finish is back in Buenos Aires on Jan.
16. The rally was moved to South America in 2009 because of safety
concerns and the possibility of a terrorist attack in Africa.USA Today

30 December A
former Catholicarchbishop in Argentina
has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of a
seminary student in 1992,
a court report said Wednesday. Former Archbishop Edgardo Gabriel
Storni "acted with total impunity" and there was enough proof to
convict him, Judge Maria Amalia Mascheroni said in the
sentencing.CNN

29 December
Rain-fueled flooding in
Argentina has killed at least two people and forced the evacuation
of 3,000 residents, officials said Tuesday. The city of San
Antonio de Areco, in northern Buenos Aires Province, was hit
particularly hard, with 90 blocks underwater, Gov. Daniel Scioli told
the state-run Telam news agency. He said the flooding was
unlike any he had seen, and it caught the area by
surprise.CNN

14 DecemberArgentina, a nation that
prides itself on having more cattle than people, may soon be forced to import
beef to keep its meat-loving
citizens happy at the dinner table. Intense government efforts to
keep meat affordable through taxes, export restrictions and price
controls have enabled Argentines to eat record amounts of beef this
year, but the short-term bonanza has come at a very steep cost.
With little or no profit left in meat, ranchers are selling out,
slaughtering even the female cows needed to maintain their
herds.ap through
msnbc

14 December
Argentine soccer club Banfield claimed the first
league title in its 113-year history on Sunday, finishing on top of
the Apertura standings despite a
2-0 loss at Boca
Juniors. Newell's Old Boys, which trailed
Banfield by two points entering the final round, missed their
chance with a 2-0 loss at San Lorenzo. A victory by Newell's and a
loss by Banfield would have given Newell's a sixth championship.
ap

2 December A
federal judge in Buenos Aires has barred same-sex
“marriage” from taking place in the Argentinean capital this week,
overturning a decision by a lower court judge who had previously
ruled it to be unconstitutional to prohibit marriage between two
persons of the same sex. Judge Martha Gomez Alsina ruled that the
lower court judge did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the
country’s Civil Code, which states that marriage is a
contract between one man and one woman.CNA

2 November A trial
began on Monday for Argentina’s last dictator, Reynaldo
Bignone, a retired general, as well as for five former
generals and two others who are accused of kidnappings and murders that prosecutors say took place in the
Campo de Mayomilitary base.
General Bignone is accused of holding ultimate responsibility for
myriad cases of torture, illegal break-ins and deprivations of
human rights from 1976 to 1978, before he was appointed president
by the military junta in the waning years of the
dictatorship.NYT